From facial recognition to drones and crop monitoring, discover how nations are deploying new AI tech, and who is leading the way
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$4.8 trillion. That’s what estimates predict the global AI market will be worth by 2033. As the sector continues to boom, many nations across the world have begun to implement the technology in a variety of ways.
Take the example of China – which ranks as the global leader in students graduating in AI-related courses – or the US, home to companies including Microsoft’s OpenAI and Google’s DeepMind. AI also has vast applications in environmental science: the tech can detect wildfires in the Amazon, uncover illegal logging in West Africa, and monitor global volcanic activity.
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Clearly, AI’s uses are ever-expanding, continuing to multiply as the technology becomes more advanced. So, how exactly are countries deploying the technology? And which nations are leading the way in the AI race? Read on to take a deep dive into the world of artificial intelligence…
China
With more than 500 cities utilising AI for public surveillance, China is the most AI-integrated urban nation anywhere on the planet.
The country deploys AI to assist in a variety of tasks, which some experts consider to fall under the umbrella of assisting the government’s ideological control. For example, facial recognition technology is used across the Zinjiang region of China, enabling the government to monitor the Muslim Uyghur population. As well as this, a chatbot developed by university researchers – known as Xue Xi – was trained in part with software aiming to indoctrinate users with Communist Party ideology.
Artificial intelligence is also working its way into the nation’s manufacturing and logistics sector, bolstering the efficiency of supply chains and solidifying China’s prime position in global supply chains.
The country’s social credit system – a scheme that rates citizens on their financial and civic behaviour – has presented another opportunity to utilise the power of AI. Already, the technology is being deployed to track online interactions, monetary transactions and social relationships in real time.
In addition, military operations are beginning to incorporate AI into their workings, with autonomous submarines, drones and robotic platforms a certain part of China’s future arsenal.
China also created DeepSeek, a free-to-use AI chatbot that came under fire for its collection of large amounts of personal information collected from users, which is then stored in ‘secure servers’ in the country.
US
The US is home to a variety of AI companies – OpenAI, DeepMind and NVIDIA – and the technology they offer is being deployed across a vast range of sectors. For example, banks such as JPMorgan and BlackRock are using artificial intelligence to quickly analyse data, increasing the speed at which investments can occur.
For other businesses, artificial intelligence offers benefits to streamline operations and increase productivity. For example, AI-driven robots are being used within warehouses such as Amazon’s, and AI-operated chatbots are able to offer online customers personalised recommendations and support for a smoother shopping experience.
The power of artificial intelligence within healthcare settings is also being realised in the country. Just last month, Microsoft created a new AI system able to outperform human doctors, with an 80 per cent accuracy rate of diagnosing complex medical cases.
As well as this, the US is shaping up to have a workforce well-versed in the world of AI: the nation takes the top spot with the greatest number of AI PhD graduates (between 2022 and 2023) anywhere in the world: 3,475.
Another sector reaping the benefits of AI is the US military, which has utilised the technology in a plethora of initiatives. These include Project Maven – a project created to analyse drone footage using AI operations across the Middle East and Ukraine – as well as a healthcare fraud detection scheme harnessing the tech to prevent fraudulent activities.
Additionally, the US military signed a $200 million contract with OpenAI to develop AI tools for the purpose of national security, in areas including cyber defence and military healthcare.
Europe
In comparison to other regions across the world, Europe lags slightly behind in the AI race. That’s because businesses must comply with a comprehensive legal framework created for AI back in 2024, ensuring that any developed models within the bloc follow a specific ‘transparency’ criteria.
As such, companies are required to provide detailed summaries of any data used, and comply with EU copyright laws. In the event that businesses forgo such requirements, violations are met with a hefty €35 million fine or 7 per cent of a company’s global annual turnover.
Out of anywhere in Europe, France invests the most into AI, at a sizeable $1.65 billion. This huge sum of money is being propelled into AI research hubs.
The next largest investors are Germany ($1.5 billion) – which helps small and mid-sized companies integrate AI into manufacturing and logistics – and the United Kingdom ($1.38 billion).
India
India has more AI-skilled developers on GitHub – an online development platform allowing individuals to share and create code – than anywhere in the world.
Although the country currently falls behind other major players like China and the US, the creation of its artificial intelligence national strategy – dubbed IndiaAI mission – is beginning to turn the tide. Essentially, the project seeks to develop the country’s native AI capabilities, creating models and enhancing computing infrastructure.
Despite its current AI shortcomings, India is still deploying artificial intelligence where it can into everyday life. For example, one study deployed AI in radiology across 17 healthcare institutions with the purpose of interpreting chest X-rays. The results were promising, achieving 98 precision in detecting potential illnesses and disease.
Within agriculture, an AI large-language model has also been developed to provide voice-based assistance to farmers in English, Hindi and Hinglish, offering bespoke advice on farming practice. Another initiative has sought to increase the use of AI, robotics and drones in agriculture to enhance productivity and sustainability.
For drivers in India, AI offers a welcome relief from traffic congestion: India’s first AI-Powered advanced traffic management system has been created to ensure vehicle flow and improve road safety in the nation.
The Global South
Compared to the Global North, the Global South has less capacity to fund AI research and development. Primarily, this is due to a lack of high capacity computing resources, storage capacity and appropriate cybersecurity infrastructure – all of which accumulate to a hefty price tag unaffordable for most countries in the region.
However, despite difficulties, the Global South is still utilising the technology in various ways. For example, small-scale farmers in Kenya are used to receiving tailored advice on pest control and fertilisation, helping to boost plant yields.
For future generations in the Global South, AI is playing a pivotal role in schools. In Ethiopia, students are receiving educational materials tailored to their individual needs, supporting teaching provisions.
Additionally, governments within the Global South are proposing innovative ways of incorporating AI into public services. In Togo, AI systems have been created to identify households in critical need of cash transfers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these systems were able to distribute emergency cash transfers to more than 920,000 people.
China vs US – who takes the top spot?
As the demand for AI soars, both the US and China have been vying to take the lead within the sector. The gap is certainly closing between both nations, Although Chinese AI models are similar to their US counterparts, it is the US that currently has greater compute capacity – a measure that refers to the nation owning both more, and more advanced, AI chips (hardware required by artificial intelligence to carry out particular tasks).
To put into perspective how vast the difference is between the US and China’s computing capacity, it’s helpful to think of AI data centres as ‘virtual employees’ that perform various tasks. The US has roughly ten times the quantity of data centres – or number of ‘virtual employees’ – than China, meaning a greater number of these employees can be spread across a variety of sectors, from drug discovery to robotics and even AI research itself. In turn, this leads to the US possessing a much stronger economic advantage over China.
Additionally, one major factor slowing China’s progress in AI is export controls created by the US. In short, these controls restrict China from importing their advanced AI chips along with other limitations. While China may eventually create AI models that rival the US’s, some experts argue that the best measure of AI leadership is in the deployment of such systems at scale: an action that the US is already trumping China in.
